Principal Consultant, Safety

ERM is the largest global pure-play sustainability consultancy dedicated to partnering with the world's leading organizations to develop innovative solutions for sustainability challenges. With a commitment to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace, ERM employs a "boots to boardroom" approach, providing comprehensive sustainability services ranging from environmental, health, safety, risk, to social issues. This allows ERM to deliver strategic and technical solutions that effectively advance client objectives across all organizational levels, from operational to executive leadership. ERM prides itself on fostering a culture where diverse perspectives drive the creation of superior safety and sustainability outcomes, making it a leading choice for organizations in biotech, pharmaceutical, high-tech, chemical, academic research, and government sectors.

The role of Principal Consultant, Health & Safety (Biosafety Focus) at ERM, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is an opportunity to shape the future of laboratory biosafety and enterprise health and safety performance in complex, high-risk environments. This part-time role places you at the strategic intersection of science, operations, and risk management, where your expertise will guide how biotechnology, pharmaceutical, research, and high-tech organizations design and implement biosafety and health and safety programs that transcend mere compliance. The position is critical amid accelerating scientific innovation, which demands resilient safety programs that enable safe, scalable innovation while protecting people and operations.

In this role, you will lead biosafety strategies across Biosafety Levels 1 and 2 (BSL-1 and BSL-2) laboratories with strong expertise preferred in BSL-3 environments. Your responsibilities encompass developing and managing comprehensive biosafety management systems that include policies, standards, procedures, risk assessments, agent-specific risk reviews, exposure control plans, and biological spill response protocols. You will also support Institutional Biosafety Committees by overseeing protocol reviews, ensuring compliance with NIH guidelines, and sustaining governance cadence. Focused on continual improvement, you will conduct training, audits, gap analyses, and maturity assessments, develop effective corrective actions, and verify compliance effectiveness.

Additional responsibilities include oversight of program interfaces such as equipment certification, laboratory design and operational readiness, waste management, occupational health coordination (including vaccines and medical surveillance), and contractor controls. You will design integrated health and safety programs aligned with ISO 45001 standards, emphasizing risk management, contractor management, and serious injury and fatality prevention.

A key aspect of the role is incident investigation and root cause analysis to drive organizational learning and improvement. As a visible subject matter expert, you will contribute to ERM's best practices and support client account teams to develop new opportunities and strengthen long-term client relationships. Beyond technical leadership, you will mentor and guide consulting teams, supporting recruiting, onboarding, performance coaching, and overall team development.

This position requires strong communication and influencing skills to translate complex technical risk into clear, actionable strategies for stakeholders at all levels. The ideal candidate is willing to travel up to 50 percent based on client needs and possess significant professional experience and credentials in biosafety and health and safety sectors. Joining ERM means committing to advancing both client and organizational success by applying deep biosafety knowledge in dynamic, complex laboratory environments, helping to ensure the health and safety of workers and communities while enabling cutting-edge scientific progress.